3 ms·
A really good way to get an intuitive grasp is to spend some time getting a handle on quantum tunneling.
by QAPereo 9y ago
A really good way to get an intuitive grasp is to spend some time getting a handle on quantum tunneling.
- wadkar 9y agoI do happen to know quantum tunneling a bit. I had the fortune to use a electronic tunnel microscope to observe the surface of gold (Ag) surface. But I can’t seem to “intuitively grasp” it
- QAPereo 9y agoThe electron’s wavefunction isn’t localized like the classical “billiard ball” and has a nonzero chance of being on the other side of a barrier. The truth is that it has a nonzero chance of being on the other side of the galaxy, albeit a much lower chance than tunneling across a microscopic barrier. In macroscopic terms, the only way you could pin the thing down is by stopping it cold (in microscopic terms, you’d detect it by interacting with it, a la a photon detector). This isn’t just a matter of equipment you use to detect the electron, or photon, or anything with an apparent de Broglie wavelength. It really is a matter of the electron existing with some level of uncertainty regarding correlated variables like position and momentum. Mind you At high energy’s macroscopic objects will display characteristic wavelength, and be obviously subject to the same uncertainty. It’s just that in our universe, in our lives, we live at very large scales and low energies compared to an electron.